August 9, 2011

Or maybe I’m just a hammer

It is interesting to examine the fundamental disconnect between the reportage of the protests and the content of their demands. They’re protesting the disparity between the high cost of living and the much lower income of most Israelis, but this situation is a result of cartels and oligopolies that were created by the state. Or as we would call it, Obamanomics.

If you watch Al Jazeera English, or listen to NPR’s “The World,” you would think that the reason Israelis can’t afford consumer goods and don’t have access to affordable housing is because they live in some sort of capitalist dystopia when the exact opposite is the case. These conditions are a holdover of the period when Israel was an exemplar of the socialist state.